I am a volunteer with the local museum and perform a Civil War surgery tent at their annual festival. These were not the “good old days.” Surgeons often learned their trade on the job. They knew nothing about germs and only learned the value of cleanliness by trial and error. A camp of men polluted any area where they camped, and dysentery was a primary issue. For every casualty on the battlefield, there were two to disease. The pollution they created was so bad that a military camp outside Washington inspired the creation of the Sanitation Commission because of the stench.

Camp had a “sink,” which was a shallow trench that was the camp open-air bathroom. Shy men found other places around the camp to do their business, turning the entire camp into a sewage dump. As you can imagine, flys and bugs covered the sink and the entire camp.

The injured from battle were placed all over the open area around the surgery tent. Surgery tents were wide open so the surgeons could have the light. Everyone around saw and heard everything as the surgeon went from amputation to amputation, wiping off his knife with the same bloody rag used on the previous surgeries. Stacks of body parts waited to be gathered and buried. The same bugs that crawled on the sewage covered the open wounds of the injured. Terrible isn’t it? I’d call that graphic until I began to see it as a metaphor for today, making it even more graphic. 

Our sewage runs freely though the streets and airways nowadays through public media and news media. All the filth of our society is published openly, often times under the guise of entertainment. Sexual unfaithfulness and perversity, immorality of all types, greed, selfishness in every dimension, cruelty of every description, and so much more are the pollutions of our world camp. Sad and sin covered bugs, covered in pollution, freely travel and park on our spirits through all the media of our world: radio, TV, movies, news, advertising. You get it literally from every direction, every day. 

Each of us, one way or another, is wounded through the battle against sin and for salvation on this planet we call home. None of us are exempt from the battle. None of us are without injury. We, like the soldiers, are in the open in the camp with all the other wounded and the pollution of our society. 

Are we even aware of the pollution within which we live or the sin carrying bugs to which we are exposed every day of our lives, or are we, like those soldiers, not aware that there is anything better? God shows us that there is more and better.

The world has seen the more and better God offers. They have to have seen it. The world cries out for justice, fairness, love, compassion, purity, and other qualities of God that are more and better than humanity can produce or duplicate. God has spoken loud enough for all of us to hear. Even nature testifies to His greatness above all that we see or know. There is life without pollution. There is life without the sin carrying bugs that are so common in this life. Jesus is the living proof and image of that truth.

The great joy is that we can be separated from the camp of this world, as the Israelites were separated from the Egyptians during the time of the plagues. Jesus is willing to set up His camp within our souls and provide the healing and freedom we so greatly desire. In Him we have the freedom that we can’t gain through anything we do ourselves or anything provided by this world.  

We have a doctor who treats all our wounds and diseases. We have a counselor who treats our PTSD from living in a war zone. We have a general who leads the battle and guarantees a winning war, no matter how many setbacks seem to be in our path or the testimony of the world around us. The Holy Spirit is that doctor, counselor, truth, and life of Jesus within us.

Our salvation makes us children of heaven and beneficiaries of all the beauty and wholeness of Jesus, continually poured into our lives throughout our time on earth. We have hope, love, joy, and the qualities of God continually being revealed to us and in us through the steadfast work of the Holy Spirit. We are able to learn and enjoy the kingdom of Heaven, even as we are freed from this world on the way home to heaven.